Celebrating the Edge

I know that he won't brag about himself, so I'll do it for him: the one and only John T was named to Who's Who at the Beard Awards this week.  CONGRATULATIONS!  Why the delay in the post, you ask?  Because I've been waiting to get his photo first, before posting.  And, just this morning, I've lifted it from Tom Freeland's blog.  The news about John T is exciting, but not surprising -- we've known he was one of the five recipients for awhile now.  And, for those of you who don't know this great guy that I work with, here's a little info:

John T. Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. The SFA has completed more than 300 oral histories and 20 films, focusing on the likes of fried chicken cooks, row crop farmers, oystermen, and bartenders. Edge is also a contributing editor at Gourmet. He writes for the New York Times. He is a longtime a columnist for the Oxford American. His work for Saveur and other magazines has been featured in six editions of the Best Food Writing compilation. Edge is the author of six books, including the James Beard Foundation Award–nominated cookbook, A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South (2002). He is the editor of seven books, including the foodways volume of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (2007).